Significant Other Losing Interest...

[Xotik]

Whoo. Thanks for all the support guys.
After my rant, Sam and I sat down last night and had a pretty in depth and decent talk. He's apparently worried about my health (which has been slowly deteriorating since school started last September) and wants to take the easiest thing off of my plate right now - which he sees as the snakes.

We re-assessed why we were selling the 4 snakes, and even came up with another one. And just to outline - there are real reasons other than "us" that these guys are getting new homes.
IJ Male Breeder - Our IJ female is still a very small baby, and is his daughter to boot. And neither are BPs (obviously )
RTB - I'm not terribly into boa's, but we are keeping the other one, because he absolutely LOVES her. (I admit, I love her too)
Normal BP Male Breeder - I have 5 males and 5 females. I was going to have to move him out at some point anyways.
Normal BP Male Baby - He was a rescue, was supposed to be female, turned out to be male, so now he needs a new home.

And even came up with one more.

IJ Female Baby - She is Sams snake, and on his own decided he would rather have the RTB than the IJ baby.

His main concern is that I'm over-extending myself (if you look at my siggy, that's just the PETS, that isn't counting school and work too). I have decided - for the time being at least - to sell off the 5, and re-assess my stress situation. Probably by the time those 5 get new homes, I'll have graduated, got myself a "real life" job, and can do this as a hobby, without the stress of school looming over.

Another thing we assessed was that his mom (who truly is a wonderful woman) seems to think I am an animal hoarder, because as SOON as there is a snake that needs a home, I'm all over it. Well, I took offense to this, because I don't do it for my own satisfaction. I do it so these snakes can have a chance (if they are one of my rescues). My Pueblan - NuNu - is NEVER going ANYWHERE, because she has been through FAR too much. She deserves to sit back, and be a snake. This will be an issue that I will have to address the next time I see her, and try to explain it to her. Hopefully she can see why I do this, and understand it isn't about a hoarding tendency.

We were able to talk through it, and realize that he just wants me to put myself before everything else (which I admit, I haven't been doing.) So if I seem to disappear until mayish - I'm at work, or I'm doing homework, sleeping, or eating He has been great until now - and really it all just comes down to stress on both ends.

On another note - In response to the "if he were my s/o, he'd be out the door" style comments. It would actually be me leaving - anddddd I may have already talked to some friends and if need be, I'm going to move into their basement. It's one of those gorgeous finished basement things. So I do have a backup plan if I ever need to vamoose. My last relationship before this was a year of happy, a year of blerh, and 4 years of &($^*#%!!!!! He hated my snakes (it took me months to convince him just to let me have one, the other two were even more difficult), our relationship was more for the sake of consistency than it was for love. I spent too long in that relationship to either let this one go that way - or to stay in it till I'm so unhappy I just explode.

Thanks again everybody. Both for listening to me ramble, and for the responses. <3

[Annarose15]

Sounds like he was concerned for the right reasons, and the two of you came up with a plan that works for you both. I think that his mom will see the light when she sees your willingness to let the animals go that aren't as "necessary" right now. If she doesn't, then it isn't her life or relationship, is it? And even though it stinks sometimes to feel the need to have an "escape" route, it's always better than feeling you have to stay in a situation because there's nowhere else to go - it allows you to make decisions for the right reasons, not fear. Good luck finishing school (you'll be amazed what that will do for your stress levels), take care of yourself, and we'll look forward to hearing from you when you have time to post.

[Xotik]

Sounds like he was concerned for the right reasons, and the two of you came up with a plan that works for you both. I think that his mom will see the light when she sees your willingness to let the animals go that aren't as "necessary" right now. If she doesn't, then it isn't her life or relationship, is it? And even though it stinks sometimes to feel the need to have an "escape" route, it's always better than feeling you have to stay in a situation because there's nowhere else to go - it allows you to make decisions for the right reasons, not fear. Good luck finishing school (you'll be amazed what that will do for your stress levels), take care of yourself, and we'll look forward to hearing from you when you have time to post.

Thanks Anna. I'm hoping she will, I love her to pieces (I really couldn't have asked for a better potential mother in law). We shall see when we get there I suppose.

As for the stress, because of the talk, I think we already both feel MUCH better. Hopefully I can move on to eating better (or eating period) and actually getting a decent amount of sleep (i.e. more than 3 hours a night).